


Rumour Has It

by parcequelle



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 09:58:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12579200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parcequelle/pseuds/parcequelle
Summary: In which everyone thinks Janeway and Nechayev can't stand each other, and everyone is wrong.





	Rumour Has It

Kathryn was standing in the spacious new living room of her spacious new apartment and trying her hardest to keep a straight face. It wasn’t easy. Just back from a round of post-Dominion border negotiations, Alynna had responded to Kathryn’s hopeful dinner invitation with a request for her nearest transporter coordinates. Kathryn had met her at the pad so that they could walk back together, and now Alynna was here, inspecting everything – the walls, the floor, the desk – as though she expected an armed alien threat to jump out any minute.

‘Admi—Alynna,’ Kathryn amended, suppressing a wince at the slip. She really was seven years out of practice. ‘Can I get you something to drink? White wine, perhaps?’

Ah, now that had her attention. Kathryn schooled her face into something less smug as Alynna drew her head out from behind the white gauze curtains (impractical but decorative) and gave Kathryn a smile, almost shy. Kathryn smiled back, decidedly less shy, because she knew the origin of the shyness and things were going exactly to plan; Alynna remembered that Kathryn had remembered.

One night before _Voyager_ had set out, seven years and a lifetime ago, Kathryn and Alynna had had dinner together. In Louisiana. In a charming Creole restaurant with delicious real-cooked food that she could still picture with perfect clarity when she tried. It wasn’t a date, of course – Alynna wasn’t Alynna, back then, but Vice-Admiral Nechayev, and Kathryn was contentedly tied up with Mark – but it was the beginning of something, the spark of potential alight between them as they sat across from each other in a dimly-lit corner and managed, for the first time, to occasionally talk about something other than work. (Not the whole time, of course; they were both still themselves.)

Mostly, they had talked about wine.

They discussed their preferences, debated the merits of synthehol versus real alcohol, agreed to disagree about red (Kathryn was for, Alynna against). In the years since that night, in a holographic winery designed by Tom Paris and frequented by _Voyager_ ’s senior staff, Kathryn had learnt to appreciate white. She was grateful for that fact, now; for the way it drew Alynna right out of her focus, for the way she smiled and said, ‘I’d love some.’

Kathryn held up a finger. ‘Wait right there.’ She strode into the bedroom, to the chest at the foot of the bed – one of the only possessions she had bothered transferring from _Voyager_ , a birthday gift hand-carved by Seven of Nine and Naomi Wildman – and rummaged around for the bottle. ‘Here it is.’ She ran her sleeve over the dust streaked across its neck and held it aloft, triumphant, as she walked back out.

Just as Kathryn had hoped, Alynna abandoned her reconnaissance of Kathryn’s cactus and walked over to squint at the label. ‘What is it?’

‘A ’55 Riesling, late harvest.’ When Alynna gave her a questioning look, she said, ‘It was a welcome home gift from Jean-Luc Picard.’

‘You don’t think you ought to drink it with him?’

‘Oh, no, you’d never catch Jean-Luc drinking white.’ She frowned. ‘Come to think of it, he and I have only ever shared a bottle of red. I wonder why he thought to give it to me.’

Alynna shrugged one narrow shoulder. ‘He’s an unusual man.’

Kathryn’s eyes tracked the shift of muscle in her neck. ‘Yes, he is,’ she said. ‘Perhaps he suspected I’d drink it with you?’

Alynna snorted. ‘Somehow I doubt that. Jean-Luc is bright, but I don’t think even he is immune to the scuttlebutt that has you and I despising one another.’

‘I still don’t understand where those rumours come from, you know. You’ve always outranked me, I’ve just spent seven years in the Delta Quadrant, and we didn’t even meet until I was a lieutenant. If memory serves me, we actually had a pleasant conversation that first day, eight million years ago.’

‘Sixteen, please,’ Alynna said drily. ‘Don’t go making me older than I am, Janeway.’

Kathryn was quietly delighted that Alynna could supply the correct number of years without having to hunt, but kept that warm curl of information to herself.

‘I remember our first meeting with fondness as well,’ Alynna said, smirking. ‘You went on about massive compact halo objects until that dreadful Andorian ambassador got bored and left me alone.’

‘Oh, dear.’ The memory was yellowing at the edges but still intact enough for Kathryn to laugh, to feel a flush of recalled embarrassment. ‘It’s a wonder I didn’t frighten you off right along with him.’

‘Of course not,’ Alynna said. ‘It was interesting.’

‘For forty-five minutes?’

‘You’re forgetting I was science track, too, once upon a time.’

‘Yes,’ Kathryn said, laughing, ‘but you’re a xenobiologist! I must have been boring you rigid.’

Alynna smiled, murmured, ‘ _You_ were interesting.’

Pinned by Alynna’s bright eyes, it took a moment for Kathryn to collect herself; when she did, she said, a little huskier than she’d intended, ‘Shall we try it, then? Toast to our antagonistic rivalry?’

Alynna reached out, her long, elegant fingers stroking over the glass, then glanced up at Kathryn through her lashes. Kathryn’s heart fluttered. Alynna said, ‘I’m game if you are.’

*

In the following weeks, Alynna was stuck in top-clearance negotiations and Kathryn in her thirty-fourth set of debriefings (today’s topic: Borg Transwarp, Part Thirteen), so they had to content themselves with rushed cups of coffee and one half-hour lunch in Alynna’s office, conducted largely in silence as they both tried to catch up on memos. Though she started with a full plate and ended with an empty one, Kathryn only looked up once, and that was to thank Alynna’s competent, unflappable secretary, T’Prenn, when she came in unannounced to refill their mugs. Twenty-two minutes later, she commed through to remind Alynna that she had a meeting with Beverly Crusher at 14:00.

‘She’s a keeper,’ Kathryn said, as they packed up their things and made their way to the turbolift outside the office. ‘I don’t suppose you were planning to fire her anytime soon, were you?’

‘Hands off,’ Alynna said sternly. ‘I know you’ve always had a weakness for Vulcans, but this one has a job.’

Kathryn laughed. ‘I’d never thought of it like that.’ They stepped on, the lift mercifully empty, and she leant against the wall, thoughtful. ‘It’s true that I have had good working relationships with several Vulcans, but I rather think my weakness is for straight-talking competence, regardless of species.’

‘Hmm,’ Alynna said. She was eyeing Kathryn in a shrewd, conspiratorial way that made Kathryn’s personal shielding flicker and fail. Just as they reached the first floor of HQ, Alynna moved close and murmured, ‘I can’t say I’m immune to that, myself,’ and then strode off, not looking back, though Kathryn could swear there was a little extra sway in her hips as she went. Not that she was looking.

*

Kathryn was sitting in her soulless temporary office on the other side of HQ when her terminal pinged with a written communiqué. Grateful for any excuse to put off her reading for a few minutes longer – Amendment 18 to the United Federation of Planets’ Code of Ethics (Section 33A: The Political Capture or Imprisonment of Starfleet Military Personnel on an Alien World or Colony) – she opened it and found a scrambled admiral’s security code staring back at her. Beneath it was a single line of text:

_Reynolds out for 7. Will do what I can._

Admiral Reynolds was a hot air balloon of a bureaucrat who had had it in for Kathryn’s crew – former crew – from day one; the “7” had to mean Seven of Nine. There were only a handful of people with a high enough security clearance to send her a message like this, even fewer with the requisite knowledge, and only one who would write to her with such intimacy. She erased and scattered the message immediately, as Alynna had surely intended, and opened her logs from _Voyager_ to start reading.

When Reynolds summoned her three days later, she felt prepared. She walked into the stately conference room adjacent to his office and was only mildly surprised to find three admirals waiting for her, all sitting behind the long desk with their backs to the windows. He’d stacked the deck: Admiral Cheq’si had always believed Kathryn too reckless, Vice-Admiral Voxx was mistrustful of Terran females, and Reynolds himself was obviously dragging his heels on some petty point of politics. There was one empty seat beside him and nothing at all on the desktop. Unofficial, then.

Kathryn smiled blandly at each of them in turn and said, ‘Good afternoon, Admirals. Am I on trial?’

‘Of course not,’ Voxx said, but his sneer said “yes”.

Cheq’si leant forward and asked, ‘Why, did you do something to warrant a trial?’

‘Take a seat, Admiral Janeway,’ Reynolds said, with a passable attempt at pleasantness. ‘With your cooperation, this shouldn’t take long.’

Kathryn didn’t sit when they did. Instead, she stayed standing, glaring, with her hands on her hips. ‘What is this about? My next debriefing isn’t scheduled until Friday.’

‘We have some things to clarify,’ Reynolds said. ‘Off the record. You understand.’

‘No, actually, I don’t.’ Kathryn was still standing, and Voxx was beginning to look irritated. Good. ‘I am not some unruly cadet being summoned to a hearing for academic misconduct; I hold the same rank as you do, I have a level seven security clearance, and I know Starfleet protocol. I have the right to enquire as to the purpose of this meeting and to receive a truthful answer when I do, and so I ask again: what is this about?’

‘I told you this was going to be more trouble than it was worth,’ Cheq’si muttered, apparently to the table, which Kathryn found grossly impolite.

She was about to say so when Reynolds sighed and said, ‘It’s about your pet Borg.’

Kathryn straightened her spine and prepared to fight.

Half an hour later, after she had answered a series of progressively offensive, ridiculous, and plain paranoid questions about Seven of Nine, Borg technology, and events she had already discussed at length in her first hundred debriefings with higher-ranked officers, she snapped. ‘I feel I’ve been very patient with this disrespectful treatment of my command and my crew – my former crew,’ she said, ‘but I will not stand for any more of this. What can my answers to these redundant and frankly impertinent questions possibly have to do with the security of the Federation? I have already been debriefed on these issues more times than I can count. Seven of Nine has been debriefed even more times than that. She and Lieutenant Torres have worked hand in hand with the engineering crews here at Headquarters to integrate _Voyager_ ’s modifications into the database. My logs – both professional and personal, I might add – have been inspected and dissected for hidden messages or secret intelligence plots and determined to be clean. A little prosaic, at times, perhaps, but—’

‘Admiral!’ Reynolds exclaimed, sitting up in his chair. Voxx and Cheq’si did the same, and it was only after a second of surprise at having been interrupted (though later she would be more surprised that it hadn’t happened sooner) that she realised they weren’t speaking to her.

Alynna was standing a few feet away from her, staring the admirals down in a way that made Kathryn forget that they all had several inches on her. She held a PADD in one hand. ‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ she said, in a voice deceptively light for all the measured power in her stance. Kathryn fought an inconvenient wave of arousal. ‘I’ve been in a meeting with Doctor Crusher.’ Again? ‘What have I missed?’

‘Won’t you have a seat, Admiral Nechayev?’ Cheq’si tried.

‘I prefer to stand, thank you. Admiral Reynolds?’

‘Admiral Janeway has just been providing us closer information on her Borg crewmember.’

‘Seven of Nine,’ Nechayev said.

‘That’s right,’ Reynolds said.

‘You said “her Borg crewmember”. Where a crewmember has a name, I find epithets to be an unnecessary point of circumlocution. Wouldn’t you agree, Admiral Janeway?’

It was all Kathryn could do to say, ‘I would, Admiral.’ She was riveted.

‘Admiral Nechayev,’ Cheq’si began. He was beginning to look uncomfortable, his gills flapping more rapidly, as he glanced across at Reynolds. ‘We merely sought to ascertain—’

‘Facts about _Voyager_ ’s crew manifest and related technological modifications that have already been established by several members of Starfleet Intelligence.’ She smiled, no humour in it. ‘Including myself.’

‘I didn’t realise you…’ Reynolds started, then: ‘I didn’t see your name listed on the…’

‘I’m quite aware of that, Admiral. Why else would you have called me here to take part in this panel of time-wasting that is also an insult to a decorated hero of the Federation?’

That was laying it on a bit thick, Kathryn thought, but she wasn’t going to object, not when Voxx looked like he’d just swallowed a pile of _gagh_ and Reynolds was growing paler by the second.

‘If I may venture a guess, Admiral Reynolds?’ Alynna didn’t wait for him to respond before she walked to the desk and stood before it, PADD still in hand. ‘Your dislike of the Pathfinder project is common knowledge, as is your disbelief that any captain can remain truly loyal to Starfleet and the Prime Directive whilst out of contact with Command for so many years. You take personally the fact that Admiral Janeway succeeded in bringing her crew home despite your outspoken doubts, not to mention upheld Starfleet principles as well as anyone could be expected to under such trying circumstances.’

That was _definitely_ laying it on a bit thick – Kathryn had done things in the last seven years that would always flash before her eyes when she closed them, things she couldn’t and shouldn’t forget – but there was no arguing that Alynna was a passionate speaker capable of captivating an audience. Kathryn had no idea how much preparation she had put into this, but it didn’t sound rehearsed; it sounded natural. Steady and low, Alynna’s voice seemed to reverberate through the sterile grey furniture, over the sterile grey carpet and up into Kathryn’s feet, her legs, her spine, where it settled there, purring. It was exquisite. _Alynna_ was exquisite. She was—

Kathryn dragged her eyes from the graceful jut of Alynna’s jaw and heard Voxx muttering, ‘Bringing a Borg drone back to the Alpha Quadrant is hardly—’

Alynna cut him off by setting the PADD on the desk in front of Reynolds. ‘This is the complete medical and psychological workup of Seven of Nine, as performed by Starfleet’s Chief Medical Officer and Counsellor Deanna Troi of the _Titan_.’ All of them stared at it. ‘I have also taken the liberty of attaching the progress report on the integration of _Voyager_ ’s systems into the Federation database – but I believe that’s precisely what Admiral Janeway was saying when I came in and so rudely interrupted her.’ Alynna turned back to look at her, voice earnest, eyes too wide. Kathryn had to bite back a smile when she added, ‘My sincerest apologies, Admiral.’

‘That’s quite all right, Admiral Nechayev.’

‘This exercise,’ Alynna said, turning back to the men, ‘has proven little more than a self-indulgent waste of time and resources. Whatever loopholes you were hoping to find, Admiral Reynolds, do not exist. _Voyager_ ’s modifications do not present a threat to Federation security, Seven of Nine is no longer physically capable of assimilating anyone, and I would stake my career on the assurance that this woman’ – she gestured helpfully at Kathryn – ‘is not, and never will be, party to a Borg takeover conspiracy.’

Reynolds drew the PADD closer to his body but didn’t look at it. Cheq’si and Voxx were staring at Alynna with open astonishment. There was silence, bloated and heavy, until Voxx blurted, ‘I cannot accept this! Surely you are not defending the actions of an officer you don’t even respect? Your rivalry with Janeway is infamous throughout Command!’

‘Infamous, perhaps,’ Alynna said sweetly, not missing a beat, ‘but also inaccurate. One might even say invented. I confess, I do find it quite astonishing that not one of you thought to ask me my opinion on all this before appointing me to a redundant stone-throwing panel. I still don’t know what you were hoping to achieve here, Admiral Reynolds, and I don’t much care as long as you stop it immediately and never attempt to do so again. This dies here. Consider that an order from Starfleet Intelligence.’

‘Yes, Ma’am,’ said Reynolds. His voice was stiff, and he had his hands clasped tightly in front of him. He looked very much like he’d like to turn back time. Good riddance, Kathryn thought.

‘That goes for all of you,’ Alynna said, glaring at the other two. Voxx was looking sour again; Cheq’si looked vaguely ill. Kathryn glared at them, too, just for good measure. ‘I trust this experience will serve as sufficient warning the next time any of you are tempted to confuse gossip for fact.’ She stood tall, hands at her hips, and said, ‘The fact of the matter is this: Janeway and I have not only always respected each other professionally, but we’re also friends.’ She glanced back at her, and Kathryn just had time to note the wicked twinkle in her eye before she turned back and said, ‘ _Very_ good friends. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to talk to my good friend in private. Dismissed,’ she added, pointedly, when none of them moved. That got them going.

Kathryn was still standing in the middle of the room, picking her jaw off the floor, when Alynna spun around to face her. That glint was still in her eye, and she looked as though it was costing her a great deal of energy not to grin. Kathryn gazed at her in wonder, searching for words; when she found them, all she managed was, ‘That was quite something.’

Alynna stepped closer, closer still, stopping when she stood right in front of Kathryn. Here, Kathryn was more aware than ever of their difference in height, and found herself wanting to close the distance, to feel the brush of Alynna’s hair against her cheek, her neck. The feel the way they might fit together, to—

‘Kathryn?’

Kathryn blinked down at her, at her increasingly uncertain expression, and smiled. ‘An impressive something,’ she said, and both felt and saw Alynna release the tension in her shoulders. She wanted to touch them, to touch her, and did; settled her hands on those angular shoulders, slid her fingers in to brush at the soft skin of Alynna’s neck, the greying hair that curled around her nape. ‘My defender,’ she teased. ‘How can I ever repay you?’

Alynna's hands came up to rest on Kathryn’s on her shoulders, slim fingers caressing, and she chuckled. ‘Does that mean you’ll forgive me for as good as outing you to the three most obnoxious members of the admiralty? For staking a claim on you like a possessive 20th century thug controlled by her hindbrain?’

Kathryn laughed at the image but nodded, held Alynna’s eyes. ‘I think I’ll manage.’ She leant in closer, brushed her lips against Alynna’s ear and said, ‘I’ll even admit I rather liked it.’ Alynna shivered, and Kathryn grinned against her ear, drew back to look into her eyes. ‘After all, you put them in quite a bind. The rumour mill still has you and I as mortal enemies, so if anything changes, we’ll know they’re to blame. Moreover, they’ll know we’ll know. I’ll be surprised if we hear even a peep of a rumour that we’re friends, let alone—’ Kathryn felt herself blush, but powered on, ‘—something more.’

‘And are we?’ Alynna asked. She was looking up at Kathryn through her impossibly long eyelashes, their hands now linked together, and Kathryn felt desire light her up from the inside out. ‘Something more?’

Kathryn wanted to make a joke, but found she couldn’t; she smiled, brought one hand down to caress Alynna’s sense-defying cheekbone and murmured, ‘Oh, yes, I think we are.’ She swallowed. ‘I hope we are.’

‘Well thank heavens for that,’ Alynna said, laughing, bringing her hands up to Kathryn’s face, ‘because I’ve been dying to kiss you for weeks.’

‘The feeling’s mutual,’ Kathryn said, her voice dry in her throat. She disentangled her hands to draw Alynna in close, quirked an eyebrow. ‘Well?’ she asked. ‘What are you waiting for?’

‘Just that,’ Alynna said, and met Kathryn halfway.


End file.
